


You Shall Not Suffer A Witch To Live

by WhyWhyNot



Series: Exodus 22:18 KJV [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Ableism, Ableist Language, Alternate Universe - Different Powers, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Blanket Permission, Body Horror, Child Abuse, Disturbing Themes, Female Matt Murdock, Gen, Genital Mutilation, Superstition, Witch Curses, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2020-05-16 01:15:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19307659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhyWhyNot/pseuds/WhyWhyNot
Summary: Mattie is eight when she casts her first curse.





	1. Chapter 1

_I hope you will choke on it!_

Mattie is eight when she casts her first curse. She loses her sight two days later.

(A punishment. Sometimes, she wonders if she deserved it. If…)

( _If you prayed enough, God would give back your sight_ said Sister Isabella.)

(She knows, she knows it’s _bullshit_ , but a part of her still wonders.)

_I hope you will choke on it!_ she said, and the boy who stole her sandwich did.

(There must have been other things, before, for her grandmother to react so violently, but she can’t remember them.)

(What she does remember is the smell of the smoke, the little light at the end getting closer, the _burn_ when the ember touched her eyes, the terror when the nurse took off the bandages and things were so blurry she couldn’t see, how much the lights of the hospital _hurt_ , how Dad sobbed in the bathroom when he thought she was asleep.)

_I hope you will choke on it!_

Mattie is eight when she casts her first curse.

(Sometimes, she wakes up at night and gets on her knees beside her bed to thank God she didn’t conclude it with _and die_.)


	2. Chapter 2

After Dad’s death, Mattie goes to an orphanage.

(Grandmother is still alive, but the coppers dragged her away, and the lawyers and the judges sent her to jail, and she isn’t allowed to see Mattie anymore.)

They say it’s temporary. Until someone adopt her.

(They say she’s too old, and blind, and nobody will want her, and _it’s too bad, she was so clever_ , and the other kids taunt her and laugh.)

(Fuck them. She’s no less clever than before, more clever than these idiots.)

_Get to work, Mattie._

She’s going to show them. She’s going to be a lawyer, like Thurgood Marshall, and _they_ will see.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter involve depiction of rape and genital Mutilation. Please be safe

Nothing really earth-shattering happens until Mattie is fifteen.

(That is not to say that nothing happens. A lot does. Mattie grows up. She starts puberty and gets stranded in the school bathroom with blood on her legs and no idea what is going on. She finds stones that feel nice under her fingers to keep her grounded, herbs that smell good to attract good things, tinkling pearls to help sleeping. She hides scissors and cutter blades under mattresses to keep bad things away. She prays. She learns. She lives.)

The word doesn’t shatters either when Mattie is sixteen. It doesn’t break, and neither does she.

(It’s a close call.)

(Except it’s not, not really. She was never going to let them destroy her.)

It happens in the laundry room.

James Weaver and Dick Spielberg. They’re two years older than her, and the other girls warned her against getting alone with them, but Judy let her borrow the mp3 player she got at her last foster home, and with the sound of Juvenile’s “Slow Motion” in her ears, she didn’t hear them coming.

It’s James who holds her down.

It’s James who grabs her wrist, who pins them together, who bends her over a laundry machine and pushes socks in her mouth to keep her silent.

It’s James who holds her down, but it’s Dick who pulls her dress up and her panties down, who puts fingers in her and then _something else_.

(“Slow Motion” is still playing in her ears.) 

And then Dick _screams_ , and steps away, and something hot is pouring down her tighs, and there’s still _something inside her_.

And then, she _doesn’t remember_ and she’s in the shower and there’s blood everywhere, and she has to put her fingers _inside_ to remove the _thing_ and there are _teeth_ , why are there _teeth_ , and she pulls the _thing_ out of her and it’s a _dick_ , it’s Dick’s dick, her vagina grew _teeth_ and _bit it off_ , Dick doesn’t have a dick anymore and she starts laughing and she _can’t stop_.

(“Slow Motion” still plays in her ears, and she rips the headphones off.) 

\---

(The teeth fall out during her next period. She wears them on a string hidden under her top.)

(They didn’t stop her from being hurt, but they made sure the culprit paid.)


	4. Chapter 4

Dick survives.

He loses his dick, but he survives.

They stay silent, James and Dick, they stay silent, because if they did they would have to explain, to tell what they were trying to do to her (what they _did do to her)._

Mattie stays silent too, doesn’t tell anyone, because she’s not… She doesn’t… 

She’s not sure it’s supposed to happen. 

(She asks Judy. Judy, who puts her hand on her shoulder and tells her it can’t happen, it’s just a stupid invention of the patriarchy to dismiss rape victims, _don’t worry Mattie, you’ll never find teeth in your vagina_ , and Mattie swallows back the hysterical laugh bubbling in her throat. And Sister Maggie overhears and laugh, really laugh, and say she’s never heard of such a thing.) 

(“Except for witches in old stories.”) 

And Mattie remembers the hatred in her grandmother’s voice when she called her a witch, the lighted smoke against her eyes, the fear in the boy’s eyes as he choked. 

( _You shall not suffer a witch to live._ ) 

Mattie keeps silent because she cannot tell. 


	5. Chapter 5

On the day she turns eighteen, Mattie is scared.

(It’s her last day at Saint Agnes. She’s leaving tonight.)

She carefully puts the last of her shirts in her suitcase, and closes it. That’s it. It’s done. All her life in a piece of luggage.

(Or, at least, all her earthly possessions.)

She sits on the bed.

(All right. It’s going to be _all right_. She’s got a place to stay, a summer job and a scholarship.)

(She’s got a bank account full of cursed money.)

Besides her, there’s a suitcase with all her life in it.

(In her pocket, the mp3 player Judy gave her, and a playlist with only one song.)

( _Slow Motion_ , by Juvenile.)


	6. Chapter 6

Lit cigarette


End file.
